It’s the three Ts: transparency, togetherness and trust, that Indofil Industries Ltd thrives on. A chemicals company promoted by the KK Modi Group, Indofil Industries believes that encouraging and fostering a work environment that inspires employees to achieve their highest potential can reap enormous benefits.

No wonder then that the company has found a place in the top 10 list of best workplaces in manufacturing by Great Place to Work Institute.

The five-decade-old Indofil Industries believes that transparency builds confidence, which is critical for long-term success; togetherness ensures team work and lowers chances of committing errors, and trust ensures that everyone is committed towards a common goal. These principles, the firm says, have helped it foster harmony among employees, which in turn has helped in developing a culture that prioritizes people above everything else.

Singapore Telecom to invest Rs2,649 crore in Bharti Telecom:

Singapore Telecommunications Ltd (Singtel) will indirectly raise its stake in Bharti Airtel Ltd by investing Rs2,649 crore in Bharti Telecom Ltd, the promoter company of Airtel, through a preferential allotment of shares.

The investment comes within two years of Singtel’s participation in Bharti Telecom’s rights issue of Rs2,500 crore, which was completed in February 2016, Bharti Airtel said in a statement on Monday.

With the latest round of investment, Singtel’s total stake (along with its affiliates) in Bharti Telecom will increase to 48.9% from 47.17% currently, the statement said. The Mittal family owned Bharti Enterprises continues to hold over 50% stake in Bharti Telecom.

The transaction is subject to approval by shareholders of Bharti Telecom and the funds raised will be used towards debt reduction, the company said.

“The transaction is sentimentally positive for Airtel. It is a sign of confidence by Singtel in Airtel,” a Mumbai-based analyst said on the condition of anonymity.

Sterlite Power, which last bought out its overseas PE investor from the transmission arm, looks to invest about USD 10 billion over the next three-four years to expand business in both domestic and overseas markets.

The company had acquired the 28.4 per cent stake that Standard Chartered Private Equity (SCPE) held in its transmission business for Rs 1,010 crore, thus owning 100 per cent stake.

The SCPE exited the company with over 100 per cent premium on its Rs 500 crore investment in made 2014.
“There is immense scope in the transmission business, especially after government opened up the sector to private players.

“Besides, there is huge opportunity in the international market and we expect to have projects worth USD 10 billion under management over the next three-four years,” Sterlite Power Group chief executive Pratik Agarwal told PTI over the weekend.

Private equity firms Everstone Capital and AION Capital have envisaged interest in acquiring significant minority stake in Catholic Syrian Bank, as the Kerala-based lender looks to raise $100 million in equity, said Times of India report quoting sources. Last year, Fairfax made a formal offer to acquire a stake valuing the bank at around Rs 1,300 crore. However, the deal fell through over valuation differences. According to the news report, the board of CSB is expected to consider suitors for a 30 per cent stake this week. “They want a large enough stake with a board seat to influence the direction of the bank, and are not happy with a 4.9% stake in a syndicated deal,” said one of the sources cited in the report.

Sterlite Power bags $800 mn transmission project in Brazil:

Sterlite Power today said it has bagged a contract worth USD 800 million to construct 1800 km transmission project in Brazil.

The project will be executed in north of Brazil, in the states of Pará and Tocantins, with more than 1800 km of transmission lines, the company said in a statement.

“Sterlite has demonstrated its international competitiveness by winning the largest lot on offer in the auction. We are committed to building a global transmission company by focusing on talent, technology and innovation,” company’s Chairman Pravin Agarwal said.

Investors Will Be Taking a Second Look at Atlas Copco AB (OTCMKTS:ATLKY) After Recent Moves:

Major market players are buzzing over Atlas Copco AB (OTCMKTS:ATLKY) as their share price hit $41.58 at the end of the most recent trading session.

Market capitalization is the total dollar market value of a company’s shares. It is calculated by multiplying a company’s shares outstanding by the current market price of one share. Investors use this figure to figure out a company’s size, as opposed to just using total asset or sales figures. Market capitalization is important because company size is a basic indicator of multiple characteristics in which investors are interested in, including risk. It is easy to calculate. For example, a company with 40 million shares selling at $100 a share would have a market cap of $4 billion. Companies are ranked according to their market caps, ranking them as large-cap, mid-cap and small-cap. Large-cap companies usually have a market capitalization of $10 billion and up. These large-cap companies have typically been around for a long period of time, and they are usually major players in well-established industries. Mid-cap companies have a market capitalization of $2 billion – $10 billion. Mid-cap companies operate in industries expected to experience rapid growth. Companies that have a market capitalization $300 million – $2 billion are classified as small-cap companies. These companies are usually young in age and they could serve new industries as well as niche markets. Atlas Copco AB (OTCMKTS:ATLKY)’s market cap is $34902.

France’s Altran Tech buys Aricent for $2 billion:

French engineering, research and development (ER&D) company Altran Technologies SA has acquired US design and engineering services firm Aricent Inc. at an enterprise value of $2 billion in an all-cash transaction, Altran said in a statement.

Altran acquired California-based Aricent (formerly Flextronics Software Systems) from a group of investors led by private equity firm KKR and Co. LP, which had a 79% stake in the company and was advised by JPMogan Chase and Co. Aricent claims to employ 12,000 engineers, designers and consultants at 19 locations, and has offices in Bengaluru, Gurugram, Pune, Hyderabad, Noida and Chennai.

Mint first reported about Altran’s interest in acquiring Aricent on 14 November. The report said KKR was in early stages of discussions to sell Aricent and Altran was one of the potential suitors.

Catholic Syrian Bank moving to a more stable and sustainable earnings base:

Catholic Syrian Bank — one of the oldest private sector banks in the country — has not fully lived up to its heritage and exploited the business opportunities that were available even as newer entrants have marched past and left it behind during the past decade. There has been churn at the top and a new chief executive at the helm every few years has affected the bank’s plans to an extent. The current incumbent CVR Rajendran, who has been in office during the last year, has focussed on cleaning up the balance sheet and putting in place a new structure to place the bank in a different growth trajectory. The bank is placing emphasis on doing business through “clearly defined verticals and clearly defined roles”,

he said in an interaction with BusinessLine. Excerpts:

The bank seemed to have done well last fiscal when it made a profit after posting a huge loss in FY16. But appears to have slid again, reporting some losses in H1 of this fiscal. Why?

The net profit of ₹1.55 crore of FY17 was driven by treasury profit of ₹196 crore. It may be noted that if we exclude the treasury profit (which was due to the favourable yield movements in FY17), there was an operating loss of ₹44 crore. But if you analyse H1 figures, we have made ₹43 crore of operating profit, of which, the contribution of treasury was only ₹2 crore. Thus, now we are fast moving to a more stable and sustainable earnings base.

Metropolitan Stock Exchange of India (MSE) has announced that it has raised Rs 209 crore in just over a span of one year and has tied up further funding of Rs 95 crore with few large investors and merchant bankers.

With this, the liquid net worth of its clearing corporation subsidiary Metropolitan Clearing Corporation will be Rs 300 crore, meeting the regulator’s securities contracts requirements, according to the statement.

Hero FinCorp plans entry into non-life insurance business:

Hero FinCorp Ltd, the financial services arm of India’s largest two-wheeler maker Hero MotoCorp Ltd, plans to enter the non-life insurance business and is looking to acquire a controlling stake in an existing general insurance company, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Hero FinCorp was until recently in talks with Future Generali—a joint venture between Kishore Biyani’s Future group and Italy’s Generali group—but the talks were not successful, the people mentioned above said on condition of anonymity as the talks are private.

Emails sent to Hero FinCorp and Future Generali remained unanswered until press time.

“The talks failed because of mismatch in valuation,” the first person cited above said, adding that Hero FinCorp had also begun discussions with potential buyers to sell equity stake to raise capital for the acquisition.

Catholic Syrian Bank expects to raise funds by December:

T S Anantharaman, chairman, said the second half of the exercise would be concluded by then. CSB needs Rs 400-600 crore. Sources say SSG Capital Management, InCred Finance, Aion Capital, JM Financial and Everstone-backed IndoStar Capital are among the investors which have shown interest.

R Rajendran, managing director of CSB, say that 25-30 investors had shown interest and three-odd rounds of discussion were over. He said: “We have told the Reserve Bank that CSB will be listed in the next one and a half years.”

CSB had a net loss of Rs 149 crore in 2015-16 and then turned around in 2016-17, with net profit of Rs 1.6 crore, on the back of treasury gains. Anatharaman said the challenge was to have growth in operating profit this year without the benefit of treasury gain. The operating profit was Rs 9 crore in the first, June, quarter and Rs 34 crore in the September one. Net loss was Rs 14 crore in the first quarter; the next one saw a profit of nearly Rs 1 crore.

Metropolitan Stock Exchange of India (MSE) has mobilised Rs112 crore through a rights issue and is awaiting regulator Sebi’s approval for launching new products, a top company official said. The exchange, which was targeting to raise Rs207 crore from the rights issue, will allot the unsubscribed portion through board approval.

Proceeds from the issue would be used towards capitalisation of MSE’s subsidiary Metropolitan Clearing Corporation of India as per regulatory requirements. “MSE launched rights issue of Rs207 crore on 16 September which closed on 30 September . During this time, MSE was successful in raising Rs112 crore,” MSE Managing Director and CEO Udai Kumar told PTI.

“Unsubscribed portion will be placed and allotted through board approval,” he added. Noting that the bourse is adequately funded for business requirements, Kumar said that “if the exchange receives over- subscription in the process of placing the unsubscribed portion, it has the option to retain it”. He added that MSE is awaiting regulator Sebi’s approval for launching new products.

SSG Capital Management, InCred in race to buy up to 15% stake in CSB :

SSG Capital Management, a Singapore-based pan-Asian private equity investor, is in a race with former Deutsche Bank co-CEO Anshu Jain-backed In-Cred Finance to buy up to 15% stake in Kerala-based Catholic Syrian Bank after the latter’s talks with Canadian billionaire Prem Watsa-controlled Fairfax was called off on valuation differences.

Fresh negotiations would be for a secondary block from some of the shareholders wanting to exit the bank, as against the previously negotiated deal which was for a controlling holding in the company, multiple sources said.

The bank’s shareholders are expecting a valuation of Rs 1,700 to Rs 2,000 crore. An earlier deal with Fairfax fell through mainly because the Canadians only offered Rs 1,300 crore.